Phrasal verb

Phrasal verb is the name given to an Englishverb which is composed of two or three words. One verb is combined with a preposition (like on, in, under) or an adverb (like up, down, away). Sometimes a phrasal verb can have a meaning that is very different to the meaning of at least one of those two or three words separately. Some text books call these verbs multi-word verbs. Phrasal verbs are used more frequently in everyday speech than in formal, official writing or speaking.

Here are some examples:

Maria didn't know the word, so shelooked it upin the dictionary.

Oh no, we'verun out ofmilk! I'll have to buy some more.

Farmers have toget upearly in the morning.

The rockettook offwith a loud roar.

Often these phrasal verbs have a one-word equivalent in other languages. In Spanish, to get up can be translated as levantarse, in French as se lever etc.

Many students of English as a foreign language panic when they hear the term "phrasal verbs", but in fact phrasal verbs are just vocabulary to memorize, and not some strange, secret grammatical formula. In fact many native speakers of English do not know the term "phrasal verb" at all, even though they probably use them very often!